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28 May 2012

National prefers rhetoric to reality

A report issued weeks before a global summit claims New Zealand has failed to meet any of the major commitments agreed to at the world's largest environment conference 20 years ago.

The World Wildlife Fund has collated its report as world leaders prepare to head to Brazil to report back on what has been achieved since the Earth Summit in 1992.

New Zealand along with 178 other countries made a commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions and protect water quality, biodiversity and fisheries.

WWF executive director for New Zealand Chris Howe says New Zealand has failed to meet even one of those commitments.

The two most startling failures featured in the report are a 20% rise in emissions and a quadrupling in the number of threatened species to almost 4000.

Mr Howe says this should serve as a wake-up call to New Zealanders and encourage them to lobby the Government for better environmental legislation.

The problem is that they aren't listening. The rest of the article is filled with the usual rhetoric from rightwing spin doctors, in this case Amy Adams. She doesn't believe the report and claims New Zealand is doing well in terms of our international obligations, which is complete rubbish!

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of species extinction in the world, and has reneged on commitments made at Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen and Cancun. National's denial of reality and its continued reliance on propaganda to keep the public uninformed has to end.